Talk: Secret Invasion

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Remove Event Beginning

The following discussion is an archived discussion. Please do not modify it.

Beginning Date Removed - Jessica3801 💕💕🏳️‍⚧️ | Message Wall • Contributions 15:47, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

I propose removing the "Beginning" of this event as Late 2023. What is the "Secret Invasion"? The "Invasion" section of the page only includes 2026 events, yet the "Beginning" lists "Late 2023." After asking staff on Discord, Raff said this is because this is when the Harvest was collected. However, I don't see why this should mark the beginning of the invasion. Within the same conversation, Logan admitted that we don't truly know when the invasion began, which makes sense to me. Prescod monitored attacks that were "within the past year." The Skrull Council have clearly invaded long before the events of the series, which Gravik made clear. One million Skrulls invaded in 2018. Is the 1997 promise an invasion? I find it easiest to not have a start. Criszz (talk) 04:07, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

The question of when the invasion began is debated: 1997, when the Skrulls came to Earth and started working for Fury? 2023, when the Harvest was collected? 2025-2026? I disagree that the Harvest collection is a definitive beginning, not to mention Raava's possible start of impersonating Rhodey going back to 2016. I would be in support of making the start date unknown. •   MJLogan95 | Message Wall • Contributions   04:11, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree that we don't know exactly when the Secret Invasion began, there is no hard confirmation on that date or even soft implication that the Harvest is the beginning of the Invasion. Though the Harvest is used for the plans for the Invasion, there is no confirmation that the original intent of the collection of the Harvest was to start the Invasion as it was an operation headed by Nick Fury. -    Fish Master 41 | Message Wall • Contributions   04:19, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Agreed with the comments above. MalchonC (talk) 06:31, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree as well - E-Scope | Message Wall • Contribs - 15:01, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Ditto the above comments sentiments.    Pr0tato210 | Message Wall • Contributions   15:22, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

For the record, I put it at Late 2023 because when I was doing dates for wars, the clear starter on the page was that Gravik was enranged when Fury when to space. That is placed to Late 2023 which is why I put that. However, we do have an estimate for the beginning. It should be post-1995 when the invasion starts. And the things that don’t take place before the invasion could have started should not be in background, but rather mixed into the war subsections itself, which is where the confusion lies. - Raff • Message Wall • Contributions 16:54, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

From our discussion on Discord: Yes, I think it makes sense to have the start in 1997 to keep it as open as possible. Criszz (talk) 21:14, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

The Secret Invasion is Gravik's systematic replacement of key figures with the goal of replacing humans, nothing before then. Gravik was still working with theory until after the Harvest, and it is said in the show that it was a reaction to Fury's disappearance. The war cannot start before the Battle of Earth and it certainly cannot start at a time where Gravik is still loyal to Fury. - Jessica3801 💕💕🏳️‍⚧️ | Message Wall • Contributions 19:37, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Response to this message: I honestly don't see the issue with Gravik invading at a time where he's still under Fury. The invasion was secret. Varra herself associated with Fury while secretly taking orders from Raava, gathering information from Fury, and placing him in compromising positions.

Response to our Discord discussion: You brought up Talos' line in episode 1 as establishing the timeline: "She was young. Angry that our people still don't have a home. Many of them are upset. I got kicked off the Council, pushed into exile. But, Gravik... Gravik, mate, he took your abandonment that much harder."

My response was:

I have a couple of issues with relying on this line:

The first is minor: the guy who directed the scene with this dialogue doesn't believe the invasion began in 2023.

The second speaks more to the narrative/themes of the series. This line comes just twelve minutes into the pilot episode, at a time where Talos has limited information on the scope of Gravik's invasion and doesn't fully comprehend the issues the Skrulls have with Fury (and Talos himself) due to his own naivety. Selim and Ben-Adir say that Gravik's true motivations wouldn't be explored until later in the series. In that scene at the beginning of the story, Talos believes Gravik's problem is Fury's isolation on SABER because that's the problem Talos has with Fury (which he establishes in the train scene). What he doesn't realize is that Gravik's grievances run much, much deeper than that, which the series establishes later on while also establishing that Talos really struggles to wrap his head around the concept of seeing Fury's decades of abuse as the problem. Selim and Ben-Adir consistently point to Gravik's radicalization as stemming from the trauma and suffering he experienced under Fury, and they never point to Fury going to SABER as the reason for his invasion.

Citing:

• "So yeah, it was something that I leaned into massively. I was like, this motivation is coming from a place of feeling let down by leadership, time and time again. How many times has this guy been dropped on his head, time and time again? How much suffering has he seen? How much trauma has he experienced to get to a point where we meet him at the beginning of the show, where he trusts no one anymore? Do you know what I mean? And he's taken shit into his own hands. I think he's really far gone."

• "That's an interesting question. That's kind of the whole backstory. That's where all of the creative thinking was behind, what was his experience before he got off? How much trauma and war and devastation did he see as a child? And then what was it that happened here to sort of change him over? I think it was his mistrust in leadership and having put so much faith into people time and time again, and the feeling that he's just been dropped on his head time and time again. We meet him at a point where it's like, no more."

• "So Gravik is the villain of the piece. What can you say about the events and the relationships that led him to this place?"

"Huge trauma, huge mistrust of leadership, feeling of being let down time and time again by different figures of authority and leadership, seeing war — it's the buildup of all of that. Later on, we get to see him explain some of those reasons for why he feels the way that he does, but it's the abuse of power, the mistrust of leadership, the broken promises and the feeling like he's had enough."

I'd be interested to hear what others think. I really don't think Talos' line at the beginning of the series is intended to be taken at face value. To be clear, I'm not arguing that the invasion must have begun before 2023. My position is that we currently don't know when Gravik's invasion began, and we can't rely on this line as confirmation. Criszz (talk) 21:18, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the points presented above. We have no concrete way to definitively state that the "Secret Invasion" stemmed from Gravik turning on Fury post-October 2023. What is the Secret Invasion? Is it when Skrulls first came to Earth and secretly took on positions of power, mingling and hiding among humanity? Because that would be 1997. Ah, but Fury was aware of those Skrulls, as they worked for him. Was it when Skrulls started doing it without his knowledge, loyal to Gravik? Based on the dubious nature of when Raava took over Rhodey (see: Talk: War Machine) if indeed Raava has simmed Rhodey since summer 2016, this was something that was kept from Fury and Talos. Raava was loyal to Gravik, and despite Gravik not entirely "breaking bad" until after October 2023, Raava's takeover of the Avenger James Rhodes had been done in secret. Is the Secret Invasion referring to when (I forget the exact number) but at least a million Skrulls migrated to Earth post-Snap and began simming humans? If so, that's 2018-2023. Is the Invasion when Gravik wanted revenge against Fury and had Talos ousted from the Council and began a revenge plot?

To me it seems all of the above "start dates" are valid and it's why I'm of the mind we either treat the start date as 1997 or perhaps give it no start date at all; in essence, the exact beginning of the "Secret Invasion" is unknown to us. •   MJLogan95 | Message Wall • Contributions   21:25, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

The Secret Invasion is the events referred to by the series' title "Secret Invasion." The Skrulls working for Fury was not an invasion, it's very definitively Gravik's actions and that's always been how we treated it on the wiki, which should not change. This isn't about defining the invasion, it's about defining when Gravik began his invasion. Even if Rhodey was replaced in 2016, that might not have had anything to do with Gravik's goal and could have just been separate. As I explained on discord regarding Talos' episode 1 line, Talos is misunderstanding Gravik's motivation, which would by necessity require an understanding of the timeline. Talos thinking that Gravik started his invasion as a reaction to Fury leaving, regardless of the truth of Talos’ understanding of Gravik’s motivation, necessitates that the invasion started after Fury left, otherwise you’d have Talos saying "He was so upset about you leaving that he started doing this thing before you left," which doesn't make any sense. - Jessica3801 💕💕🏳️‍⚧️ | Message Wall • Contributions 22:07, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

"Talos is misunderstanding Gravik's motivation, which would by necessity require an understanding of the timeline."

On this topic, I would want to point out that in this scene, the timeline Talos has in mind comes from when Gravik joined the Skrull Council. The series makes it clear that Gravik regularly did things behind the scenes without the Council's knowledge or approval for some time as his plans brewed (e.g. the attacks Prescod monitored for a year were clearly not known to them). His line comes directly after he says he was kicked off the Council and directly before they say Gravik is the newest member of the Council. Therefore, this is the timeline Talos is operating on. Not necessarily the start of his invasion. Criszz (talk) 23:22, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

While it's certainly possible that he started before, that veers into fanon interpretations which we don't use on the wiki, especially when it contradicts dialogue. Using what is said to us in the show without fan interpretations of it, Gravik's replacement of individuals on earth with the goal of establishing it as a replacement homeworld for Skrullos cannot have started at a time where Gravik was still loyal to Fury, which would place it after Fury's collection of the Harvest at the least. Late 2023 is in fact an earliest possible date using what is said in the show and is not contradicted. - Jessica3801 💕💕🏳️‍⚧️ | Message Wall • Contributions 14:54, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

To clarify my stance above, I believe Late 2023 to be an accurate date for the start, but if disagreed upon, the start definitely should not be removed altogether and instead changed to post-1997 when the flashbacks of Fury making a deal with the skrulls happens. - Raff • Message Wall • Contributions 02:43, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

So we currently have six in favor of removing a start date/"Beginning" section for the Secret Invasion, and two in favor of keeping it as late 2023. •   MJLogan95 | Message Wall • Contributions   06:43, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it.